


Where the Blameless Pixies Dwell

by shinealightrose



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: F/F, Fantasy, Pixies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 17:38:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8023024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightrose/pseuds/shinealightrose
Summary: Kyungsoo gets a very strange visitor on the morning of her fifteenth birthday, a beautiful pixie who calls herself Minseok and seems to know more about Kyungsoo’s life than she knows herself.





	Where the Blameless Pixies Dwell

**Author's Note:**

> Written a long time ago for Squishyfied Xiusoo Exchange; Unfinished - I'm crossposting this now in the hopes I will get the urge to finish it completely.

_For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn._

That's what they tell Kyungsoo was displayed in the shop window, pale green and pink slippers with decorative lace ribbons. "And right next to it, sweet darling baby girl, was you!" 

Kyungsoo probably didn't come in shades of pastel green and pink, nor was she born with lace hanging about her feet. Nor, probably, most likely, was she purchased in a store window. But Kyungsoo's parents liked to tell the story like that anyways. Not quite an exaggeration, not really the truth, probably, most likely. Who could really be sure? 

Only one thing was certain: the baby shoes were no longer pale green and pink; they had smudged over time. Kyungsoo's dirty little baby fingers fondling them throughout childhood as if they held the secret to her birth, and perhaps by handling them, she would learn the secret. Why she was found orphaned in a shop window (or most likely, on the edge of town), why Kyungsoo seemed to have a natural affinity to the earth and for making things grow, why her ears were just a little bit more pointed than her parents, why she never grew that much taller than the height of a large child. 

And maybe the shoes held no significant value, a construct only of Kyungsoo's mind, related by virtue of her parents' fairytale story. Really, the shoes were just kind of ordinary, cotton fabric and not even silk. Not like the ones Baekhyun danced around in the village with, the girl's delicate feet and physique unmindful of trivial things like dust or mind. (Baekhyun's parents could always buy her another pair.) Meanwhile Kyungsoo only wore boots, hard-soled and sturdy, for working outside and other practicalities. The cotton baby shoes were her only nice thing, and even they'd grown old with time, lace threaded ribbons turning a dull shade of off-white, and then cream, and then like spoiled cream. She put them back in a tiny wooden box for safekeeping finally, locked it with a delicate key, and threaded the key through twine and wore it like a necklace.

And sometimes, in the middle of the night, Kyungsoo dreamed she saw a delicate, white sparkling light hovering around and over the box, a glow of a human figure, small like herself, or a shimmering hand reaching across Kyungsoo's breast for where her key was tied. She dreamed, but never saw properly the imprint of a pixie who maybe just wanted to steal her lace shoes. It was just a dream, probably, most likely. 

 

 

On the morning of her fifteenth birthday, Kyungsoo finally saw her. Awoken by her hums, a delicate, gentle, but mischievous sound, like the wind during the season when winter turns to spring. It pulled Kyungsoo from her dreams, nose wrinkling, eyes closed, squinting against the refractions of a shimmering image on the foot of her bed. She opened her eyes abruptly; saw without comprehending the figure of a girl like herself. But not like herself at all. She became clearer the longer Kyungsoo looked, more solid, refined. A dainty girl sitting up next to the bedpost, knees drawn close and folded to one side, and while she hummed, one long delicate finger traced a pattern on the bedspread. She hadn't yet noticed she was being watched.

Kyungsoo blinked, not daring to move, not daring to believe. A dream, surely, that was all this could be. Kyungsoo looked about her room for any sign that she might still be asleep. It all seemed very real though with the girl humming and smiling, pale blue eyes following the movement of her fingertips. She had short, shoulder length hair parted down the middle, a little wispy, a little wild. The color of red roses after they've started to dry. And across her pale face were freckles, just a few here and there. Kyungsoo held her breath, ears listening in to a melody both strange and familiar. 

But then the girl looked at her, and smiled, showing no teeth yet under her tightly pressed lips, cheeks puffed out and eyes sparkling bright. 

"Oh," she said suddenly, after their eyes had locked in place for several moments. "You're awake. Good morning!" And every expression which before had seemed sweet turned instantly playful. The girl's lips unveiled themselves into a gorgeous smile, thin but charming, showing a lot of her pale pink gums. 

"Who-Who are you?" Kyungsoo barely voiced. Her eyes had gone wide, body stiff like in a nightmare. 

"Me?" said the girl with a slight tilting of her head. "Oh, that's right. You won't have seen me before. Not really. Not like I am now." 

"I've never seen you before." Kyungsoo had her covers pulled up to her waist. Unbidden, her fingers curled over the edge of the trim as she attempted to pull the quilt up,  to protect herself. It was the only thing she could think of, yet the quilt did not budge. It tugged and held from where the girl's weight held it in place, and Kyungsoo gulped, watching how the stranger's gaze finally left her own and travelled to the foot of bed where the fabric pulled taut.

It didn't seem to faze her. Instead, she looked up and continued smiling. "Which name would you like? I have a few you know. Oh, there's the one I was born with, but that one got old. I changed it. And then I had another for a while, but I don't think it suited me very well." She frowned and shook her head. A few stray hairs fell across her forehead like overly long bangs and she pushed them away with the palm of her hand, pensively furrowing her brows. "I think I like my newest one though. At least for a little while longer. Minseok. You can call me Minseok, is that okay?" 

"What are you? Why do you have so many names?" There were a few other questions Kyungsoo had for her as well. Like, what are you doing here and what do you want? The whole image of the girl though, Minseok, was confusing. She had definitely been shimmering before; Minseok definitely looked real now, with only a glimmer still remaining, like she was something magical. 

"You don't know what I am?" Minseok asked, shyly, sadly. She pursed her lips, pouting actually, and her tone was wistful and longing. "You probably don't even know what  _you_  are, darling girl."

It was not one of the questions Kyungsoo had been thinking to ask. She knew who she was, surely. An orphan, child now to a lovely set of parents, with many friends in the village who teased her only slightly about her height (she hadn't yet given up hope for one more growth spurt), but they did give her grief for the strange slope of her ears and-

"What do you mean, what  _I_  am?" 

Instead of answering, Minseok smiled again, once more sweet and a little bit flirty. She sat up on her knees and lifted her hips into the air, started to fall forward as if to crawl up the bed. Kyungsoo at once tried to sit up, suddenly alarmed, but the drag of her nightdress pinned her under the quilt and Minseok's weight kept it still from moving. Kyungsoo could do nothing except clutch onto her only source of covers and she stared wide eyed as Minseok closed in the distance between them. Her legs were bare from the knees down, for she wore only a pair of short length pants, like the little boys would wear in the village up until a certain age. The edges were frayed though, unkempt, and the fabric a little dirty. On top she wore a flowy kind of blouse in the same off-white color of Kyungsoo's baby shoe lace ribbons. Also a little stained and worn, although it was tied with a ruby red silk ribbon laced through the fabric. As she crawled forward it revealed her collar bones and just the hint of a small, petite bosom.

Kyungsoo closed her eyes, willing this all to go away. 

"Aww, are you frightened of me?"

Minseok's voice was close. Right in front of Kyungsoo's face, actually. She gasped when the blue eyes looked curiously into her own black ones. 

"You don't have to be frightened of me. I'm just here to play. Or rather, to wish you a happy birthday. You're fifteen today, which means you can see me finally." While Kyungsoo calmed her breath, she decided Minseok indeed wasn't all that terrifying. Ignorant of personal space maybe, but otherwise kind of nice. She hovered just to the side of Kyungsoo's hip, head angled down, noses almost touching.

"Welcome to the world, baby girl." 

The space proximity became suddenly too much. Kyungsoo threw out her arms, intending to push Minseok away, but instead the girl laughed, softly but merrily, and fell away all on her own. She landed with a thump on the bed, head on Kyungsoo's pillow, staring now at her profile and still smiling. 

"I'm not a baby. I'm fifteen, as you said," Kyungsoo huffed, still scrambling to put some space between them. She could only manage a few inches sideways, further against the wall in her bed. 

"Fifteen is such a blip in this world though. And you, my dear, will live to be so much older. So much older than anyone around here." Minseok's smile seemed to get even brighter. "What a fun thing too, because then we can become great friends. You and I." 

"What do you mean. How old are  _you_?" 

"Me?" 

Kyungsoo nodded, however Minseok laughed again, softer this time. 

"You want me to tell you my age? But, dear, I'm  _so old_. Can't you ask me a question less rude?" Minseok frowned cutely and propped up her elbow on Kyungsoo's pillow, cradling her head with her hand.

"Okay," Kyungsoo whispered. "What... are you... and why are you here?"

"Ohhh, but okay, can I only answer the second question?" Minseok genuinely inquired. For lack of a better response, Kyungsoo merely nodded. 

The girl seemed to like this response, or rather, she liked something she saw. Her blue eyes seemed to twinkle again, intent on staring Kyungsoo into the wall, and the intensity of it made Kyungsoo start to squirm. Especially when it lasted beyond a few moments, long seconds actually where Kyungsoo wondered why she was still laying here under her covers with a stranger. A very beautiful, but mysterious girl stranger. 

"Why I am here?" said Minseok finally. "It's because I like pretty things."

"P-pretty things... like..." Kyungsoo held her breath, because Minseok was still staring at her.

"Yes. Pretty things like.... like your baby shoes."

"My baby shoes?" Kyungsoo started, almost sitting up sideways in her bed. She perched her elbow up, mirroring Minseok, and as she did so, the key around her neck swung forwards from her nightgown. For the first time in a long while, Minseok's eyes left hers and followed the string where it ended. Kyungsoo gulped again as the girl opened her mouth, eyes almost hungry as she eyed the key necklace, a hint of tongue poking out above the bottom row of teeth.

Without looking up, Minseok said, "Yes. Well, not the shoes especially. I like the ribbon though." Almost catlike, her gaze flicked back up, her mouth shut cutely, and then she smiled. "Like I said, I adore pretty things. I used to always play with your shoes. Why did you lock them up?" 

"I don't understand. Why do you like my shoes?"

"Aww, don't you know? I just said: because they are pretty. And because..."

"What have they got to do with why you're here though?"

The girl stopped smiling, and for a second Kyungsoo thought she saw another shimmer pass over Minseok from her head to her toes. A glow that was both curious and frightening. Minseok lifted her head, shook off another stray wisp of hair from her face and settled it back into her palm, frowning once more. Her eyes went again to the key around Kyungsoo's neck, and Kyungsoo couldn't help it. She palmed it herself, overly protective of the cold metal object that safeguarded her shoes. Kyungsoo hadn't even really believed in her parents' story. Baby shoes found in a window, and baby Kyungsoo right next them.  _Never worn_. How then could they have been hers? 

A warm touch suddenly enclosed around her hand, Minseok's fingers upon hers, nudging, seeking, gently prying open Kyungsoo's protective fist. Her heart began to race, breath coming out heavier than before. She jerked away, every muscle alert and this time she succeeded in breaking away from the covers. Her back hit the wall, black hair flying over her face. Kyungsoo scrambled on her knees to get away from the stranger, made it only as far as the bed post before she realized Minseok wasn't even pursuing her. 

Their positions were reversed. Minseok lying now calmly on her pillow, Kyungsoo crouched at the foot of the bed. Verifying she still had her necklace, Kyungsoo swept down her nightgown so that she remain covered and almost glared at the girl, who laughed once more.

"Were you frightened of me again? Kyungsoo... I told you, you don't need to be scared of me."

Only one thing registered. "How do you know my name?" 

Minseok sighed and pouted. "Why wouldn't I know your name? I've known you since you were born after all." The girl fidgeted until she was lying on her back, hands up behind her head and in the half-light of the morning's sun shining through Kyungsoo's window, Minseok looked almost normal. Like a normal girl. Except normal girls didn't have rose red hair or a faint glow that waxed and waned every other minute. 

"Who are you?" Kyungsoo said, her voice steadier this time, more demanding. 

"I told you. My name is Minseok. I'm here to be your friend. I like your baby shoes; they're very pretty, just like you. Oh, did I mention I'm also a pixie?" 

Even as Kyungsoo's mind exploded, she kept a clean expression, eyes narrowed intently as if to draw out the stranger's lies. "That has to be nonsense."

"What, you don't believe in pixies? I guess that means you also don't believe in elves, which is even sillier because you, darling girl, are an elf." Minseok smiled brightly, tilting her head side to side from happiness at her little revelation, and Kyungsoo's mouth ran dry. She almost forgot to breathe.

"I'm not an elf."

"Oh, but you are. That's why you can see me. That's why you're so special. Kyungsoo, dear, I hope you didn't believe you were actually fully human?" Minseok pouted, and Kyungsoo's confused expression seemed to confirm just that. "Oh, but you did. Didn't you?" 

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Instantly, Minseok turned playful. "Do you want to know what I'm talking about though?"

"What?"

"Aren't you curious? Just in the least?"

"I-"

"Come with me."

"What!?"

This was getting out of hand very fast, and Kyungsoo was frightened. Not of the question, not of the demand, not even of the girl, Minseok, the pixie. But mostly because Kyungsoo had no idea what even to think. Fifteen years and all she'd ever learned how to do was side-eye her parents' tales about her origin and smile wryly when told how she was found. There was no way though that Kyungsoo was an elf, or that this stranger before her was a pixie. Magic and magical creatures belonged to tales even sillier than Kyungsoo's baby shoes. 

"You still don't believe me do you," said Minseok with another sad face. She inclined her head and began playing again with Kyungsoo's quilt, tracing her fingers against the patterns and frowning. Kyungsoo didn't even dare to answer her. Her only hope for resuming a normal morning was to convince this stranger that she needed to leave. 

"You-"

"Have you looked at yourself today?" Minseok interrupted, not even looking up. 

"What?"

Minseok's gaze wandered about the room, landing on a hand held mirror on a dresser. Kyungsoo's eyes followed hers, and suddenly she felt afraid for a different reason. Was there something... different with her today? Now that she was fifteen. She didn't want to believe it though. In fact, she staunchly refused to get up or even move a muscle, for doing so would play right into the... pixie's little game. 

"Aww, so you're not going to check? Darling girl, how will you know then if your face has turned blue? Or your eyelashes bright pink? Haven't you noticed how your nose looks like a pig's?" She giggled. Meanwhile Kyungsoo used the opportunity while Minseok was distracted to quickly check down the length of her nose, and no, nothing seemed different about the shape of it, nor did it look blue. 

But Minseok moved quicker than Kyungsoo could have known. In a second she had sprung from where she lay at the top the bed and crouched before Kyungsoo, shins flat on the covers, palms on her knees and face once more placed awfully close to Kyungsoo's, invading her space once more. This time though, she was not smiling. Kyungsoo held her breath, frozen almost in time. 

"So many things you don't know," said Minseok softly, her breath tickling Kyungsoo's chin. "How can you say you don't want to know?" 

Slowly, as if Minseok didn't want to frighten her too much, her hands slid forward, finding Kyungsoo's where she clutched at her gown. The pixie's fingers slide into the spaces between her own, opening her downward facing palms, and slowly lifting them up. Kyungsoo let herself be led, watched covertly past her nose again as their palms clung together and Minseok continued drawing them up, not to herself, but to Kyungsoo's face. She turned them around in her hold until Kyungsoo's hands cupped her own ears, Minseok's right on top of them. Kyungsoo wasn't even sure what she was feeling at first. Her ears had always been a little abnormal, but now... now they were even more abnormal, different, longer, definitely more pointed.

"You've been blending in so well," said Minseok as if Kyungsoo was a wonder. Her blue eyes sparkled, freckles catching in the light from Kyungsoo's window, and the thumbs of her hands caressed slightly against Kyungsoo's pale cheeks. "Fifteen years, but now your magic is seeping through." Minseok's eyes closed almost completely, her soft voice relishing in this moment, and she whispered again, "Come with me. I want to show you."

"Show me what?" Kyungsoo whispered in return, not daring to voice her curiosity any louder, as if that would give relevance to her sudden doubts. 

"Who you are." 

Finally Minseok smiled and pulled away. She scooted backwards on the bed, sitting firmly with her legs crossed before her, and back was the mischievous girl pixie Kyungsoo had first met, not the soft-spoken and subtly eerie stranger of the last few moments. Kyungsoo let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.

"How... you're really a pixie?" Kyungsoo asked. 

Minseok laughed. "Oh, yes. Why? Do you still not believe me?" Kyungsoo shook her head and Minsoek pouted. "Well fine then, I guess I can show you." She sighed like this was a very large ordeal, gave Kyungsoo one particularly scathing look, as if reprimanding her for not believing, and then cupped chin with her hands, fingers pointed daintily up past her cheek bones. She grinned, but nothing happened.

Kyungsoo only stared at her. "Is... that supposed to be making me believe you're an actual fairy?"

Minseok sighed and dropped her hands. "Okay, so first, I'm a little rusty. It's supposed to help you see me if I pretend to be cute. Secondly, I am not a fairy. I am a pixie, and please get that right." She visibly shuddered and muttered something under her breath that sounded like,  _A fairy? Pfft._ Then she tried again, cupping her chin and smiling cutely, and this it looked like it hurt, or that Minseok really didn't like doing this. Her eyes squinted and her nose wrinkled, then the shiny glow Kyungsoo had noticed before began to glow a little brighter, and this time it appeared to grow and spread. Kyungsoo tried not to startle when the first iridescent glimmer of Minseok's pixie wings appeared. Translucent and otherworldly, Kyungsoo was certain she couldn't be hallucinating. Her ears were pointed, Minseok had wings. She was some kind of elf, and Minseok was a pixie. 

"Can you see them already?" Minseok asked impatiently, and Kyungsoo nodded. "Oh good, because this is kind of hard to maintain."  She dropped her hands with a sigh and her wings shimmered once and flickered out of visual existence. Kyungsoo realized her jaw was hanging slack, and she quickly snapped it shut. 

Minseok seemed to be considering Kyungsoo's reaction. A lazy smile, head tilted curiously, she asked, "Believe me now?" 

Kyungsoo nodded again. She did not expect her confirmation to set in action another turn of events. 

"Oh, good. Because time's running short, I'm bored of this place, and it is now, darling girl, time for us to go."

Minseok leaped from the bed happily, and Kyungsoo instantly protested. "Wait a moment. I never said I was going anywhere with you?"

"But of course you are!" Minseok practically beamed, but she was halfway across the room already and approaching the wooden box. Kyungsoo gasped, seeing what she was about to do, guessing what Minseok was about to steal the whole time. And that's when she noticed Minseok didn't need to take the box. Because she already had the key.

Kyungsoo's fingers snapped to the necklace around her throat and found absolutely nothing there. "You!" she screeched in a low voice. Her legs scrambled on the bed, caught up in her long nightdress, while Minseok giggled as she fit the key into the lock. The lid was open and the shoes revealed before Kyungsoo could even reach the ground, and then Minseok was bolting out the door, Kyungsoo's baby shoes with her.

Kyungsoo didn't even think. Barefoot in her parents' still house, she raced after the pixie, following the sounds of tinkling laughter and soft running feet. No robe, no coat, no comb through her hair, nor powder on her cheeks, Kyungsoo dashed into the morning light. All the village was still asleep, the forest was quiet, the path and the grasses damp from an overnight rain. Puddles blocked the way and Kyungsoo hesitated for one long moment on the front steps of her house. However, Minseok had stopped as well. She stood and smiled across her turned shoulder, flitting almost above the ground just beyond the vegetable patch where a stump from a tree was left behind. Kyungsoo had sat there many a day watching the garden, watching the trees, peering past the forest line. 

Minseok knew her too well, knew what Kyungsoo craved, secretly, in only the depths of her mind: what lay beyond. Kyungsoo had never gone though, never explored, too afraid the unknown. Now though, she craved it almost as much as she wanted back her baby shoes, and Minseok knew it. With a laugh and a titter, Minseok lay one of the shoes upon the stump, the other tightly held within her hand. A taunt, a tease, an incentive. Kyungsoo's feet left the step before her mind could catch up. She scampered across the lawn to collect the shoe, and by this time Minseok was already hiding at the edge of the forest. Kyungsoo took a breath, glanced at her one retrieved shoe, exhaled slowly. Then she took off running after the pixie.


End file.
